1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a head slider for a hard disk drive. More particularly, the invention relates to a head slider for a hard disk drive where a read/write head for storing and reproducing data is attached.
This application claims the benefit of Korean Patent Application No. 10-2006-0001671, filed on Jan. 6, 2006, the subject matter of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hard disk drives (HDDs) are commonly used within various host devices, such as personal computers (PCs) to store data. Data is read from and written to a rotating disk within the HDD using a read/write head. The read/write head accesses data from the disk while floating above the surface of the disk by a predetermined height (referred to as its “flying height”).
In the conventional HDDs, the read/write head floats over the disk (i.e., the magnetic surface of the disk which acts as a recording medium) during read/write operations at a constant flying height—regardless of the actual operating temperature of the HDD. Since the flying height of the read/write head is always maintained at a constant value despite changes in the operating temperature of the HDD, data is sometimes lost during read/write operations at low temperatures, due to thermally influenced changes in the electro-magnetic properties of the disk.
At high temperatures, the pole tip of the head thermally expands and sometimes protrudes towards the disk to a degree outside of design specifications. In other words, a so-called thermal pole tip protrusion phenomenon occurs. When this phenomenon occurs, the conventional assumptions associated with maintaining a constant flying height for the head causes errant spacing between the pole tip and the disk. Such errant spacing may lead to loss of data during read/write operations or increase the possibility of the pole tip impacting the disk as the result of an externally applied force. Such impacts may lead to permanent damage of the head and/or disk.